The Essence Of the Guru.

Long ago, a Babaji had come to meet me from Gyanganj (it’s a village en route Kailash Mansarovar, where many yogis dwell, and who are apparently taken care of by the Chinese government). He was in Delhi for treatment of cancer which was yet to manifest in his body, but which had been intimated to him by his guru. He told me that in the forests of Madhya Pradesh, is a lake of crocodiles where a Mataji does her sadhna. She is among the few who, in present age, has some state in yoga. She lives with the crocodiles who do her no harm, such is her sadhna. I told him, “Ok, then I will go to meet her.” Babaji replied, “What will you achieve by meeting her? Her sadhna is her state of mind, the level you are at you will not be able to understand it. If you want to achieve the level of her sadhna, then just go and sit there. Anything more than that would amount to disturbing her and you will achieve nothing.”

The problem of kalyug is that our desires are embedded in the physical — physical is what the majority understands.

So even when one sets on a search for a guru, s/he measures him on physical yardsticks — how big is his ashram, etc. Beyond that one is unable to comprehend, missing out on the essence of what a guru is. Today innovative terms like “love guru”, “business guru”, “management guru” have become popular. Earlier there was just “guru”. This is indicative of the wrong thought processes and desires of people. In present times, one would give more respect to a mathematics teacher than a guru for the thought pattern is — “at least he will teach me something I can use”. What the guru has to offer hardly anyone can comprehend or even has the desire to receive.

Guru is for evolution and, there is a pyramidal structure to evolution. A move up the pyramid is a move away from the base which symbolises physical desire and physical creation. So if you are looking for networking, building contacts, collecting assets, expansion of business, showing off your position in an organisation, you are actually working in reverse and moving towards the base of the pyramid.

It’s okay to be embedded in the physical because for majority that is the starting point, but if you have found a guru and are walking on his said path and over a period of time your desires are still as they were, then you need to think whether you are wrong or are in the wrong place.

When you meet a guru, it gradually desires change from lower to higher. But then, there has to be a reason to find a guru. If your desires are rested in the physical, then you need not go to a guru. Simple charity and service and following the laws of creation are enough to achieve physical desires.

Guru is needed when you want to understand what lies beyond, and desire for siddhis of yoga to go out of the ambit of the cycle of life and death.

Guru Purnima is a powerful day and holds special significance in the life of a sadhak.